Let’s call the CP up for the year just ended

The national Cooperative Program just ended a fiscal year and Baptist Press reports that the total received by the Executive Committee for distribution to the mission boards, seminaries, ERLC and a couple of other national entities was slightly less than the last fiscal year.

The SBC received $197,044,828.14 in CP allocation gifts for the year. This amount is 0.05 percent less than it received during the last fiscal year, and is 2.63 percent more than its budgeted goal of $192 million.

The CP is in many ways the measure of the cooperative spirit in the SBC and we compare it year-to-year to see how things are going in the churches. Since the last fiscal year included a one time gift from the Florida Baptist Convention of $3.1 million (that big check came from the sale of a hard asset, the FBC headquarters building), we can legitimately say that CP revenues from the churches and state conventions increased about 1.5 percent or so. That’s good news for our national entities.

The bad CP news was given in June when the average percentage church giving declined from 5.16% to 4.86%, a significant drop in just one year. But this is Cooperative Program emphasis month and by blogging fiat I declare the CP to be UP for the fiscal year just ended.

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About William Thornton

William Thornton is a lifelong Southern Baptist and semi-retired pastor who served churches in South Carolina and Georgia. He is a graduate of the University of Georgia and Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. You may find him occasionally on Twitter @wmgthornton.

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Blake Haas

Does anyone know stats behind recently planted churches and CP giving? For example, a look at the average giving of SBC churches in their first five years of life.